


till i taste nectar too

by quackingfish



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Unhealthy Defense Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:26:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23681560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quackingfish/pseuds/quackingfish
Summary: It was strange to be this vicious. He didn’t like the way it made his skin fit. He spent his nights drinking away the shaky anger. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He was untouchable.Still, if you were going to burn, might as well make sure it was with your own match. Arthur hating the most assholeish version of him was better than him hating the real one. He didn’t know why this man in particular mattered this much, but why reflect on your feelings when you could be drunk instead?OR: Two slightly traumatised boys are angry, defensive, and oblivious, until they aren't.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been ruling my life all of April, and I still have no idea how I've managed to write something that isn't just porn. I have an /outline doc/! I never outline! I never write anything that needs one! Shit's wild.
> 
> cw: implied/referenced child abuse and ptsd, because it's me, and i need to work through this shit /somehow/
> 
> Title (and the lyrics) are from Nectar- Magic Circuit  
> The other, HUGE musical influence of this fic is the entirety of the Waterparks album FANDOM, which is what really drove me to write this. Every damn song has left its mark on this, but especially Easy To Hate, which got stuck in my head for days and forced me to write to get it out. Give it a listen!
> 
> Second chapter up soon, I just want to fiddle with it a bit more (and have actual work I've been putting off all this time lmao)

> If I can't be myself
> 
> Then I'll try being you
> 
> And I'll keep being someone else
> 
> Till I taste nectar too

  
  


The first time Eames saw Arthur was, on the whole, pretty unremarkable. He was surrounded by stacks of papers, flicking between them and a small laptop, the sleeves of his dark green shirt rolled up to his elbows. He hadn’t looked up. Cobb had come to meet Eames immediately, rising from whatever it was he had been doing and shaking his hand. Eames had worked with Cobb once before, and the job had gone fine, fairly simple but with some nice flourishes. 

This job looked to be relatively straightforward too, and Eames took a while to wander around the warehouse, familiarising himself with the layout. It was fairly sparse, but had enough desks, and a corner with some cheap, probably charity shop sofas that Eames imagined would be where they’d dream. He took a moment to sink down into one, a lumpy brown number, and couldn’t help but sigh. The flight into Perth hadn’t been terrible, as flights went, but it had been a long travel day. He grabbed at a folder that had been left on the arm of the sofa, and started flipping through. 

Unfortunately, it was fairly boring, just data on the mark’s financial records, and Eames found himself slipping into a near sleep. Not a real one, just the kind of fuzzy, eyes half open space that felt warm and irresistible. 

There was a sharp _snap_ , and Eames jerked up, spine straightening on instinct. It was just Arthur, who Cobb had pointed out during his welcome, which must have been less than an hour ago. A quick glance told Eames that the sound had just been him shutting his laptop sharply, and he watched as Arthur rolled down his sleeves and smoothed his hands over his waistcoat.

Arthur turned to him, presumably able to tell Eames had been watching him. 

“I assume you’re the one to speak to for a stack of documents to take back to my hotel with me?” Eames asked, an offering. He was pretty sure he could see some colour coding in the piles on what must have been Arthur’s desk.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Anything in particular?”

“Basic grounding, plus all the detail we have on the mark, the client, and their contacts so far. I’ll have to go and build personality profiles from scratch, of course, but it’s good to see where we’re at.” Eames rose, not having to pull too deep to offer a smile. He preferred to learn people from firsthand data, but he also needed to know what the rest of the team had so far. 

“Hm,” Arthur gave him a quick once-over, and then turned back to his desk. “I have detailed backgrounds on the whole family, medical records, financials, plenty of surveillance, and the start of a very thorough scrape of social media. I hope that meets your standards?”

“It’ll be a start,” Eames smiled again, letting it fall lazy and sloppy across his face. “Anything stand out immediately?”

Arthur didn’t respond, just kept flipping through folders, pulling pages out and piling them in a new order. Eames watched him, stepping closer but keeping his distance. After a few minutes, Arthur handed him a decently thick dossier, which Eames took a moment to flick through.

“Do you know where Cobb went?” Arthur asked, everything about his voice icy and stiff. 

“Afraid not, nearly conked out on the sofa as it was,” It was subtle, but Arthur somehow stiffened even more at his response. Eames kept himself loose, but it took effort; that kind of shift in posture meant frustration and carefully reigned in anger.

Arthur left soon after that, not looking at Eames as he tugged on a long raincoat. 

Later, in bed, covers thrown to the floor, Eames found himself appreciating the thoroughness of the research Arthur had given him. Meticulous, well detailed, and organised, headings and subheadings and neatly numbered page references. _Far_ from the worst report Eames had been handed at the outset of a job- the one the shitty extractor in Istanbul had given him had been mostly questions sprawled on the back of various leaflets. 

A few days later, Eames was reclining with deliberate gracelessness in a chair in a bar, sipping a drink and letting drunk-looking hazy eyes scan the room. The bank records Arthur had dug up had indicated semi-regular whole-office takeout orders from here, so here Eames was. 

A pair of the mark’s subordinates were meeting here for an extended lunch, and Eames could pick up both the tenor of their conversation and details of them complaining about their co-workers. It was unlikely that they were close enough to their boss to be a good target for the forge, but it was still eminently possible, and would make his life a tad easier. Even if he wasn’t, it was good to be here. 

The mark had gone straight from university to his current job, and seemed to enjoy it, but also was the type to never take a lunch break if he could help it, according to a joke Eames was delighted to overhear. Personable enough to have friends, and apparently co-workers who _thought_ they were friends. 

The blonde one, who was on track for a promotion, was just asking how things were going at home when Eames saw Arthur walking towards him, shirt buttoned up but with no tie. Eames blinked at him, but was far more interested in the conversation he was listening to, so he got no real warning before Arthur was at his table, rapping on it with his knuckles. 

“Come on.” 

Eames wanted to protest, but Arthur’s eyes were dark, and they couldn’t risk drawing attention. He left a couple of notes on the table, weirdly colourful things, damn Aussies, and let Arthur steer him out of the bar.

He waited until they had gone around a few corners, until the bustle of businessmen and women grabbing coffee and sandwiches gave them solid camouflage. 

“What’s up, Arthur?” 

“You’re drinking on the job. We have work to do, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Eames had noticed. He’d noticed the bags under Arthur’s eyes, covered up with concealer, but not well enough. He’d noticed the long hours, the lack of breaks, the tense looks Arthur gave to Cobb when he vanished for the third time in one day. 

“I’m just a little tipsy. Besides, sweetheart, I _am_ working. Or, rather, I _was_ -”

Arthur cut him off with a snarl. “Don’t try and con me, Eames. I’m smarter than whatever tricks you think you can pull. We’re going back to work; don’t make me fetch you again.”

And that was that. Arthur kicked up the pace, and Eames trailed after him, keeping his walk loose and determinedly not letting the sharp tension Arthur was carrying visibly rub off on him. 

Fine. If that was how this was going to go, Eames would make damn sure it went that way under his own control. Arthur didn’t like him, thought he was an incompetent slacker? Fine! He _would_ be one. He’d be the best slacker the world had ever seen, and he’d do his job perfectly all the while. 

It went like this: Eames would suggest something, Arthur would shoot him down mercilessly, Eames would snipe back, and Cobb would come up with something from the wreckage. And their poor chemist, Jimmi, would fidget in the corner with her chemistry equipment. 

“Classic dinner party, just him and some friends, one of which will be me?” Eames leaned back in his chair, his soft peach shirt unbuttoned further than he would’ve kept it in normal temperatures. 

“We’d stand out too much if it’s small,” Arthur shot back, not looking up from his notebook. He was chewing on a pen, and he’d lost both the jacket and the pale waistcoat earlier. 

“You’re fairly unremarkable, sure, I’ll grant you that,” Eames smiled to cover up the way he was assessing Arthur’s reaction. He didn’t seem like the type to want to blend in, but apparently it didn’t bother him too much. 

“Something with his friends would work well, though,” Cobb offered, missing the quiet hostility completely. Cobb missed a lot of things these days, apparently. “A ball? A bar crawl?”

“It depends how intimate we want it to be, and how many moving parts we want to deal with. Booking out a club to celebrate a promotion?” Eames was drawn to the idea of a bar crawl, the challenge of moving the whole group and the opportunities. Chances for a mugging, for drunken confessions outside a pub, companionable conversations over shitty takeout. But also probably more complicated than they needed. 

“Complete with both a staff room with a safe and a secure lockbox in the cloakroom,” Cobb nodded, turning away to go to his desk, where he immediately started sketching. 

“We’ll need a lot more specifics, and probably the street outside too, to give us more room.” Arthur, of course, always finding some fault or another. At least he seemed to tolerate the idea.

Eames stood up, probably not hiding quite enough with his body language. “Going out to do some research, probably won’t be back.” It was barely mid-afternoon, and Arthur’s jaw twitched. Good.

He was, in fact, going to go do some research, some surveillance, and probably find an unsecured wifi connection and look into Arthur and Cobb, but Arthur didn’t need to know that. 

Arthur had been working point to Cobb’s architect-cum-extractor for a while, it turned out. And Cobb’s wife had apparently killed herself under suspicious circumstances. Eames didn’t want to piss Cobb off, particularly, so he’d leave that alone. Arthur had cleaned up his trace fairly thoroughly, but clearly didn’t think in the way Eames did. It wasn’t the names of his parents he was after, it was the smaller things, the military background, the perfectionism, the lack of evidence for a discharge that must have been somewhat dishonourable. It was all in the shoulders. 

Cobb was too distracted with the club, and, presumably, the dead wife, to notice the careful way Eames was playing Arthur. (And, though he wouldn’t admit it, the way Arthur was giving as good as he got.)

“Darling, I’m much less replaceable than you, watch those hands.” 

“I can’t imagine where else we could find a lazy gambler, you’re right.”

Arthur was bristling, hands tense, curling into fists on his laptop. Eames did what he did best, covered his response to the jab with a grin and a wink. Never let them see your sore spots. It was a shame for Arthur, really, that Eames was so good at that.

“I’m surprised you don’t wear bubble wrap, with how bloody safe you have to play everything.”

“Go on, go tend to Cobb like the loyal little mutt you are.”

It was strange to be this vicious. He didn’t like the way it made his skin fit. He spent his nights drinking away the shaky anger. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He was untouchable. 

Still, if you were going to burn, might as well make sure it was with your own match. Arthur hating the most assholeish version of him was better than him hating the real one. He didn’t know why this man in particular mattered this much, but why reflect on your feelings when you could be drunk instead?

  
  


“And here I thought conmen were supposed to be _likeable_. But maybe that’s just another mask, hm?”

Eames should’ve responded to that in kind, kept the rhythm going, the one that he’d started himself not five minutes ago. He couldn’t even remember what it was that he’d said to Arthur. But he’d just spent a good couple of hours dipping in and out of the dream to perfect the forge of the mark’s best friend Luis, and Luis was a _real_ piece of work, and Eames hadn’t let him go properly yet, could still feel phantom suits and lacrosse calluses. 

His eyes started to slide out of focus, and his body was torn between frozen stillness and unpredictable violence. _Eames_ didn’t want to hurt him, not physically, but the lingering aftertaste of Eames-as-Luis wanted to slam him against the wall by his throat. 

He stormed out instead, letting the warehouse door slam. He refused to analyse whatever it was he saw in Arthur’s face. 

Still, Eames kept his mouth shut during their test runs. He listened when Arthur barked out a quick order, and most of the time, obeyed. He was a consummate professional. 

Cobb’s club was nice, darkly lit and with several intimate corners and booths. The bar was delightfully well stocked, and made out of a rich dark wood that Eames couldn’t help but trail his fingers over. 

Eames was going to forge Luis, and the mark, Steven, would climb out of a cab and walk right into the club, and then they and several of Steven’s friends, his own projections, would celebrate Luis’ promotion. Some of the background checks showed that there might be something criminal that Steven was hiding, just like his wife suspected, but it seemed like Luis didn’t know. Luis was very much the don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t notice type.

So he’d distract the mark, buy him drinks and shitty food and maybe take him out for a smoke break, and meanwhile Cobb would break into the employee safe and then the cloakroom box, while Arthur kept the projections from getting ornery. The wife had granted them access to their home, which made it easy for Jimmi to knock him out and then, later, deliver the kick. It was a tight plan, without many opportunities for error. 

Everything was going well, Eames’ forge was fooling the mark perfectly, and they were drinking and laughing. He even got an opportunity to ask about Steven’s recent flush of cash, which confirmed that he was in something shady that he didn’t want to tell his above-board friends about. He glimpsed Cobb once, looking harried, leading a projection into the bathroom. Which was more Arthur’s job, and it wasn’t like Eames could do anything about it. 

The issue came when one of the mark’s friend’s phones rang, the projection standing up quickly, knocking the table and smashing a glass. And Eames recognised the ringtone, the opening theme of a radio play, and he _knew_ it, knew the sound of it combined with the shattering of a glass like he knew his bones, the way they bent and broke.

Everything in his head went still, silent, deadly frozen. He wasn’t supposed to move, not supposed to interrupt her in the kitchen, but he had to clean up the glass, he needed to be tidy and quiet and-

There was the sharp crack of a gunshot. Eames shuddered, and realised he was back in his own body, and everything’d gone to hell. The gunshot was Arthur, tie perfectly done but shirt stained unnaturally dark around his midsection. 

A projection lunged for Eames, and he pulled out his gun and shot them on raw muscle memory alone. 

Arthur was visibly beyond enraged, grabbed Eames and started running. “Lead them upstairs, if they find Cobb we’re fucked.” He snapped, slamming open the door to the wide, well decorated stairwell and managing to take out a projection with the force of it. 

Eames could only nod and do what he said, glimpsing Arthur vaulting down half the flight of stairs, dodging a cluster of projections dressed in cocktail dresses. 

The next several minutes were a blur, gunfire and bouncers and angry partiers. He was barely present in his head enough to hope Cobb could get the information, hope Arthur could keep the projections off his back. 

Then there was the kick, and Eames was blinking awake on the floor of the mark’s bedroom. A quick glance around told him he was the last of the team to be woken up. 

“What happened down there?” Jimmi asked as she pulled the line from his arm, coiling it neatly inside the briefcase. Eames just stared at her.

Arthur whirled around. “We got what we needed, despite your fuckup. Thought you were the best forger in the business.”

“I am,” Eames pulled himself upright, trying to settle back into his body. It wasn’t particularly effective.

Arthur’s tie wasn’t perfect like it had been in the dream. He wasn’t bleeding, either. He was, however, just as pissed off. He opened his mouth to speak as Eames stood up, but Cobb cut him off with a look.

“I’m going to go give what we have to Mrs. Walken. Jimmi, I assume you’ll want to start in on packing up your things from the warehouse. You two, just go back to your hotels. We need to be out of here soon.”

Eames felt himself nod, and watched the other two agree. He felt numb, like he didn’t properly exist at the edges. He helped Jimmi pack away the PASIV, and then they were leaving.

It was a testament to how utterly out of it he was that he barely noticed Arthur falling into step beside him as he headed back to his hotel. Neither of them spoke, and Eames liked it that way, using the feel of the pavement beneath his feet and the distant bustle of the city to slowly begin to anchor himself back to who he should be.

He frowned when Arthur followed him into his hotel, and then deeper when he joined him in the lift. “What are you doing?”

Arthur shook his head, a tight, barely there movement. His face still read murder.

He probably didn’t want to yell at Eames in public. Eames didn’t want Arthur to yell at him in any setting, so he tried to duck into his room and shut the door quickly enough that Arthur couldn’t join him. He was off his game, though, and he made it in, locking the door behind him.

Eames scrambled for a second, and then pushed his face into a leer. Fake it ‘till you make it, as ever. “Oh, I didn’t know it was like _that_ , baby. Should’ve seen it coming, I have got a rather magnetic sexuality,”

Arthur shoved him against the wall. “What happened?”

Eames wanted to turn his head away, so instead he met Arthur’s gaze. “Lost the forge. Bad memories. First and last time it’ll happen, don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

Arthur _growled_. His hands were firm and tight where they pinned Eames to the wall, but that didn’t stop Eames from flipping their positions, shoving Arthur with a hand in the middle of his chest.

Arthur shuddered, which a distant part of Eames’ brain categorised as interesting, worth later attention. He was far too distracted by the way Arthur’s hands felt on him, firm and warm and with just enough sting of pain to be real. 

“Nothing you couldn’t handle, apparently,” Eames muttered.

Arthur’s eyes were dark. “Shut the fuck up.” And then he was kissing him, a clash of teeth and force, Arthur wrenching him closer by the collar of his shirt. Eames didn’t entirely understand what was happening, but he was _beyond_ game for whatever it was. 

So he kissed back, giving as good as he got, snarling into the kiss and laughing when Arthur pulled away, his breath coming short and sharp. His hands flew to the buttons on Arthur’s shirt, fully intending to just rip the damn thing open, except for how one of Arthur’s hands was on his wrist, grinding the bones together under his grip.

“Ruin my shirt and I _will_ shoot you,” The threat was tempered somewhat by the flush on his face and the shortness of his breath, but something in Eames’ gut believed him anyway. 

“Fine, you deal with it.” Eames let go of him, unbuttoning his shirt enough that he could pull the thing off over his head, tossing it behind him. Arthur unbuttoned his own shirt properly, neat and efficient, before letting it drop to the floor. He grabbed at Arthur’s hips as soon as he was done, digging his thumbs into the newly exposed skin just above his hipbones. Fuck, he could spend hours doing this, leaving marks on Arthur and watching them fade. But there was a hunger in him, a roaring need for _more_ , more skin, more sensation, more of this infuriating man. 

Arthur seemed to agree, because he was crowding Eames backwards, shoving him onto the bed and undoing Eames’ trousers at the same time, flush high on his face, pupils blown wide open. Eames let him do it, dragging his nails down Arthur’s back, bucking up against him when Arthur’s hand grazed his cock.

He bit at Arthur’s neck, his shoulder, slipping a thigh between his and sneaking his hands under Arthur’s trousers, grabbing his ass and squeezing, dragging him closer. Arthur just moaned and tugged at Eames’ trousers, which were caught midway down his thighs, before he snarled and pushed himself up, onto his hands and knees. That made it actually possible for him to rid Eames of the rest of his clothes, but Eames was _starving_ for close contact, for the feel of Arthur against him, so he propped himself up, wrapping a hand firmly around the back of his neck and pulling him in for a bruising kiss.

He was distantly aware of Arthur struggling with his own cruelly well tailored trousers, but couldn’t bring himself to break the kiss, even when Arthur bit his lip and snarled, shoving at his chest. The sharp tug to his hair did work, though, and Arthur managed to break away enough to wrench his trousers off, before immediately lunging for Eames.

God, Arthur’s _mouth_. He was sharp and soft and filled with a vicious, determined focus, and one of his hands tangled in Eames’ hair again, tugging him into the exact angle he wanted. Eames could probably kiss him forever, the asshole.

But he was shudderingly, achingly hard, and Arthur was the same, pressed up against Eames’ hip, and Eames needed to get his hands all the fuck over him. So he grabbed Arthur’s ass with one hand, and snaked his hand between them to wrap his other hand around his cock, grinning into the kiss when Arthur moaned. 

Part of him wanted to tease, but the rest of him was too far gone, so he kept his hand firm around Arthur’s cock, moving it as much as the angle allowed, using his grip on his ass to push him forwards until Arthur was rocking into his hand. Eames broke the kiss and Arthur went for his neck, biting down _hard_ , letting out a short, sharp laugh when Eames twitched. 

In retaliation, Eames dug his nails into Arthur’s ass before sneaking his fingers down to tease at his hole. Arthur’s cock jumped, so Eames let go of it in favour of grabbing at him with both hands, spreading his cheeks and tracing his hole lightly with a fingertip. 

Arthur bit his collarbone, pulling hard at the skin, and then grabbed his jaw and met his eyes. “Lube?” And oh _god_ , his voice was all low and wrecked.

He inclined his head towards the bedside table, where he’d left the lube after he’d brought himself off the previous night, three fingers buried deep inside himself, drunk out of his mind and feeling like he was going to burst out of his own skin. Arthur moved away and came back with the bottle in hand, lying on his side next to Eames and opening the cap. 

He looked like he was going to lube up his own fingers, which sounded like hell of a show, but Eames _needed_ to have his hands on Arthur, in him, tearing him apart. Eames put his hand over Arthur’s, meeting his frown. “Let me?”

Arthur’s mouth quirked, but he didn’t stop Eames from coating his own fingers, and all the heat and anger left the room for a second. Eames felt something catch in his chest, something he resolutely did not want to think about.

So he sat up, shoving Arthur’s legs open and tipping him onto his stomach. If he’d been a nice, considerate person, Eames would’ve been gentle and slow, but he wasn’t. Instead, Eames held Arthur open with one hand and slid one finger into him, not waiting a second before crooking it and angling for Arthur’s prostate. 

Arthur didn’t seem to mind, or at least had expected Eames to be like this. The thought burned a little, but as he started to rock into Arthur, he tipped his hips back, bearing down against his finger, and the slide and the warmth and the way Arthur sighed shook it all away. 

Probably too soon, Eames added another finger, reveling in the twitches of Arthur’s hips and the tension in his shoulders. He couldn’t help himself from leaning down, kissing gently up his spine before biting at one of his shoulder blades, where it would hurt like a motherfucker. 

Arthur hissed and pushed back against Eames’ fingers. “More.” The tone was reminiscent of all the orders Arthur had barked out throughout the job, but for once, Eames was beyond happy to comply, scratching down one of his sides as he slipped in a third finger.

His back arched, and Eames couldn’t help but press a kiss to one of the spots where his nails had broken skin. After a moment, though, the bucking of Arthur’s hips ruined his rhythm, so Eames grabbed his hip roughly, pinning him to the bed and driving his fingers deeper. 

At Arthur’s answering whine, Eames gripped him harder, twisting the fingers inside him and delighting in the way his skin went white where he was holding him. He crooked his fingers, angling them down, and Arthur was moaning, a small tremor running down his spine, and Eames _needed_ his cock inside him more than he needed to breathe. 

Arthur’s whine when he removed his fingers was delicious, but Eames was fucking _gone_. He felt like his heart was beating out of his chest as he grabbed a condom and rolled it on, squeezing his cock to try to get himself back under control.

And _fuck_ , that turned out to have been completely useless. Arthur had risen to his hands and knees, his legs spread wide, his back arched, and he was staring back at Eames, mouth parted and eyes dark. _Fuck_. 

Eames pulled Arthur into a quick kiss, then scrambled to get behind him properly, gripping his hips and trailing a fingertip over his entrance. Arthur twitched, and then Eames was guiding his cock into him, trying to go slow, but unable to resist snapping his hips forwards when Arthur’s breath hitched. 

_God_ , he felt so fucking good, hot and slick and tight, hands tangled in the sheets, and Eames was going to _ruin_ him. 

He snapped his hips, driving into Arthur, revelling in the way he moved back to meet his every thrust. Eames slid a hand up his sides, down across his chest, and tweaked a nipple, groaning when Arthur clenched around him. So he did it again, letting his other hand fall into the dip of his waist, framing his ass perfectly and pulling him back onto his cock. Fuck, they should’ve done this _weeks_ ago. Eames felt more real than he had in a long time.

Arthur was moaning, slumping towards the bed, his entire body shaking every time Eames drove into him. Eames wanted desperately to fuck him until he collapsed face-first into the mattress, but then Arthur groaned out a quiet, shattered sounding “Oh _god_ , Eames-” 

Eames was moving before he really processed what he wanted, one hand tangled in Arthur’s hair, the other wrapped across his chest, pulling him up and away from the pillows. Arthur’s back hit Eames’ chest, his head tipping backwards and resting on his shoulder, his mouth open, face flushed bright red. Eames shoved into him again, moving his hand from Arthur’s hair to his hip, squeezing and holding him close against him.

Arthur’s hands trailed along his arms, and _yeah_ , this was what Eames went to the gym for- for the ability to hold someone, to hold _Arthur_ up and against his chest while he slammed his cock into him. It was easy, like this, to bite at Arthur’s shoulder, groaning when nails dug into his forearm in return. 

He was losing himself in the slick slide of it, in the _noises_ that Arthur kept making, the stuttering of his breath. No matter how far gone he was, though, Eames was a considerate lover, so he slid a hand down Arthur’s stomach, wrapping around his cock and pretending that his own didn’t jump inside him at the amount of precome he found there. 

Eames still came before Arthur, grinding into him and clutching him tight, the force of it blindsiding him. Arthur whined, rocking his hips down near frantically. 

“Please, _fuck_ , please, Eames _please,_ ”

It was barely more than a whisper, Arthur gasping for breath against him. Eames ignored the oversensitive twitches of his cock and slammed into him again, clawing across Arthur’s chest and speeding up the hand on Arthur’s cock, winding him tighter and tighter. 

Eames was breathless with how he felt against him, and he couldn’t resist biting a mark into his neck, high up, well above what his shirt collar would hide. That tipped Arthur over the edge, spilling all over his hand, and Eames held him there for a couple of shaky breaths before easing them down onto the bed and sliding out of him. 

Arthur’s skin was soft, and Eames tucked his face into his neck, keeping him close. Arthur pressed a kiss to Eames’ shoulder, soft and delicate and a different kind of intimate. 

The moment shattered. 

Arthur’s phone was ringing loudly, and Arthur was snapping upright, swearing. “Shit, that’ll be Cobb.” 

Eames just watched as Arthur shoved his clothes on, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder. Arthur’s hands shook slightly as he did up the buttons on his shirt, but they stilled by the time he was done. Eames wanted to get out of bed, to drag Arthur back into it, to smooth Arthur’s hair and neaten his tie, at least, but he did none of that. 

“Where are you?” Arthur hissed, ducking into the bathroom to wash his hands.

“You should be paying me more, for all that I put up with.” Arthur unlaced his shoes and worked them back on, frowning at nothing. 

“No, I’ll be right there, don’t worry. No, I wasn’t doing anything.” Arthur’s voice was curt, and he tied his tie perfectly, practiced loops of the softly patterned fabric. 

Eames turned his face into the pillow and didn’t watch as Arthur left the hotel room. He lay there for far too long, growing cold and not moving to pull the duvet over himself. 

He flew out the next morning, and his cut arrived in the expected bank account precisely on time. He picked pockets all across Los Angeles and did not think about the way Arthur had sounded when he’d begged him to come.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, cw for past child abuse, trauma, and dissociation

LA was a bastard of a city. But the bar he’d ended up in was decent, and he’d gotten utterly smashed. After last orders, the bartender had handed him a business card, and even drunk, Eames could see sympathy in his face. The card was for a therapist, that the guy said did phone sessions, and was really discrete. Eames thought the bartender was mistaking him for a celebrity, an actor, something of the sort.

He called the number anyway. 

Dr. Caroline, as she insisted on being called, turned out to be lovely. She was a hardass, not letting Eames derail the conversation, and she didn’t ask questions about why Eames regularly shifted time zones. 

Six months passed. Eames took a couple of jobs, forged a bunch of documents, and passed out drunk in hotels across the world. He saw pale imitations of Arthur in well dressed men in four countries, and hated himself in each one of them.

He nearly didn’t take the job in Kyoto when he heard that Arthur was the pointman for it. But it paid well, and it was _interesting_ \- the client was an actor, the mark his agent. Eames liked working with actor-types, at least until they inevitably clashed, and he’d never been to Kyoto. 

So he paid his tabs, packed his suitcase, and left Santiago. 

Nearly a full day of travel later, Eames staggered into the hotel Kenji had texted him the address to, clutching at a half empty cup of coffee. He shook himself for a second, and pulled himself together enough to smile at the concierge, give them the right name, and take his keycard, grabbing a leaflet at the last second just to secure the image of him as a standard tourist. 

He wanted desperately to go lie face first in bed, but he didn’t. It was still the middle of the day in Kyoto, and he had work to do. So Eames just dumped his suitcase, splashed water in his face, and headed over to the suite they were working out of. 

The long, _long_ flights had given him a chance to go through photos and surveillance footage of the mark and, by proxy, his PA, so Eames was pretty sure that forging the PA would be his best bet. He was far too tired to sit down and sift through paperwork though, so the plan was to run himself through his paces, practicing gestures and posture and the small shifts of movement that added greatly to every forge. Eames liked to get them all down before even attempting it in a dream.

He knocked on the door of the room, stepping inside and giving it a quick scan, before latching hard onto the full length mirror leaning against a wall. So much so that he didn’t properly register that it was Arthur that had opened the door until he was speaking.

“Oh, Eames, hi.”

Eames blinked, and wished he’d bought another litre of coffee. 

“Hey, darling.” 

And then he was in front of the mirror, shifting his weight closer to his toes and straightening his spine. The PA, Antonia, was sharp, flexible, got annoyed easily but managed to hide it well, aside from clicking her pens and tapping her heels. Eames sunk into being her, the tightness in her back, the careful precision layered over a tendency to fidget, the way she drank her coffee-

There was a mug of coffee in his hand. Eames blinked, took a sip, and looked up. Arthur was standing next to him, one eyebrow raised. 

“Oh! Thanks,” Eames blinked again, and took a long drink. It was obscenely sugary, and therefore perfect.

“You looked like you needed it.” Arthur said, his lips quirking, before turning away, heading back to his laptop. Huh. 

The next day, Arthur picked at him, finding faults in his plans, his research, and Eames stabbed back, not looking away from the photographs he was sticking to the mirror. He ignored the way Arthur looked at him. 

It wasn’t not the same, this time. Arthur still tore Eames apart with brutal efficiency, but it was different. Maybe it wasn’t. It hit different, though. He responded differently to Eames’ jabs, too. 

So Eames watched. It made him more precise, and they still went loud and harsh on a regular basis, when Eames landed a line perfectly on target. He thought Cobb was still annoyed with him for the thing Arthur’s face had done when Eames implied Arthur should leave, that he was no use to the team while they weren’t being shot at. A total, barefaced lie, but Arthur had just decimated one of Eames’ plans, and he was still hungover from the night before, and.

And Eames felt like shit. Kenji asked him what his issue with Arthur was, and Eames winced, then shrugged. He couldn’t tell Kenji about defense and it’s better twin, offense. He’d mentioned it to Dr. Caroline the night before, over the phone, with a bottle of wine, and she’d sighed and talked about unhealthy defense mechanisms. So he just promised Kenji it wouldn’t get in the way of the job, and went back to work.

Arthur kept his sleeves rolled up while they worked, and Eames did not think about those hands on him. He did not think about the sounds Arthur had made when he was close to coming. He didn’t compare the looks Arthur shot him to the way he’d looked at him in Eames’ Perth hotel room, heated and angry and a touch of something else Eames refused to analyse. 

They were running through things in a dream, Eames and Arthur and Cobb. Spot checking and learning the architecture, and confirming that Kenji’s Somnacin blend worked fine. Eames could, he supposed, test out his forgery, but it was still rough around the edges, and if it was anyone else, Eames probably wouldn’t have cared, but he didn’t want to wear an incomplete forge in front of Arthur.

So he walked beside Arthur, weaving their way through the expansive office landscape. Very open plan, very modern, and likely to be a nightmare if things kicked off. Eames watched Arthur’s jaw twitch as he glared at the long sightlines, and then something shifted in him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Arthur hissed, drawing his gun. 

Eames followed his gaze, and frowned when he landed on a pretty woman in a cocktail dress, holding a butcher knife. She approached them, the air between her and Arthur crackling with a clusterfuck mix of heavy emotion. 

Eames moved to draw his gun, only to hear it clattering to the floor a second later. There was the unmistakable press of a knife to his throat, Arthur’s voice, as tense as he’d ever heard it, a sharp “Don’t-” and then his shoulder blossomed into pain, an exquisite, electrical thing. 

And then his self preservation kicked in, and Eames moved, wrenching on the wrist still holding the handle of the knife, twisting until she let go. The pain was nearly all encompassing, but Eames put that part of him in a box, filed it next to all of the faces he wore, right next to his own. 

The woman produced a second knife, and Eames raised his good arm to block it when she swung. It never hit. 

Arthur was there, his hand a vicious, angry red, knuckles white as he held firm onto the blade of the knife. 

“No.” His voice was firm, but rough around the edges. His sleeves, held together by intricate cufflinks, were increasingly drenched in blood. His head whipped around to Eames, his eyes filled with a deep, floundering ache, even as he raised his gun and fired.

Eames jolted awake, breath coming out in a rush as he pressed his hand to his shoulder, over where the stab wound had been. Kenji frowned at him, opening his mouth, but then Arthur was awake, standing up and inclining his head at Eames. 

He followed Arthur out of the room, cataloging the way he fidgeted with his rolled up sleeves. Their hotel had a lovely little garden section, and that was where Arthur led him, neither saying a word until they sat on a small bench tucked out of the way.

Arthur sighed, slouching. “That’s Mal. Cobb’s wife. She killed herself nearly two years ago.”

Eames felt all the air rush out of him. “Shit. How long has he had the shade?”

Arthur looked at him, and Eames knew from the deep lines of hurt in his face that she had been one of Arthur’s closest friends, too. 

“I don’t know the specifics. I started spotting her a year ago, but we hadn’t run many jobs before then.”

Eames hummed, and Arthur continued. “At first, she was just talking to Cobb. She’s only interfered with an actual job once, as far as I know.” Eames tilted his head, and Arthur gritted his teeth. “Perth.”

Eames blinked. “Oh, _fuck_. I thought it was weird that you’d gotten stabbed rather than shot,”

“How did you know that? You never saw the wound, how could you-”

“It’s my job to see things in people. To read everything about them,” Eames smiled, but Arthur closed up, whatever Eames hadn’t noticed going on between them abruptly snapping shut.

“Yeah. Sorry, I’ll go, get back to work. Tell me if you see her again, I’m on Cobb duty. Sorry.” Arthur stood up, fidgeting slightly before checking himself, losing the slumped, more open side of him to the put together facade he wore when talking to clients. It stung, but Eames didn’t ask himself why.

Eames just watched Arthur wander away, brushed his fingers against the plant next to where Arthur had been sitting, and left to go tail the mark for the rest of the day. 

They had a meeting with the client, which later turned into her asking Eames about forging over a bottle of wine. Lieke was lovely, blonde and with deep pockets. 

“It’s not just acting, there’s a lot of attention to detail and conman bollocks. Quick improv and distracting them from the parts that you don’t know, as well as needing to be damn near perfect at reading people on the fly.” Eames smiled, and then tilted his glass towards Arthur. “Of course, that doesn’t mean shite if the research isn’t there, and they ask you about a cousin you know nothing about.”

“Still,” Lieke said, refilling her glass. “I’m sure if you can become someone else in a dream, you can do it in front of a camera,”

He laughed at that, and considered seeing if he could seduce her. He didn’t, though, his eyes catching on Arthur, sitting at a table in the corner, flicking quickly between two laptops and a notebook. 

“Possibly. I did always love Drama in school, but proper acting wasn’t for me. Drove my teachers around the bend, could never remember my lines. I like winging it too much, anyway.”

Lieke laughed, and launched into a story about a director that expected her to memorise pages and pages of changes in one lunch break. 

Later, when everyone else had left, Arthur approached Eames where he was propped against the headboard, rifling through a bundle of paper with one hand, sipping wine with the other. 

“You’re a liar,” He said, and Eames laughed and poured him a glass. 

“You only realized that now?”

Arthur huffed a near laugh, and took a long drink. “No, earlier, with the client. You said you were bad at memorisation, but I’ve seen you inhale reports and directly quote them later. I could probably quiz you on everything about the mark’s childhood and you’d get it all right, wouldn’t you?”

Eames blinked. He hadn’t thought he was particularly drunk, but maybe he was wrong. “You noticed?”

Arthur quirked an eyebrow at him. “I’m no forger, but I do notice things about people, from time to time.”

Eames hummed, and watched him as he poked at Eames’ notes and drank his wine. He was pouring himself another glass when Eames talked again.

“You might be able to, if you got a bit of imagination into you. That and an art background. Any secret poetry or something?” He liked the idea of Arthur as a poet, but couldn’t decide if he’d go for some torturously restrictive form or a loose free verse. 

Arthur laughed, a delicate, shining thing. Eames thought he saw a dimple. “No, no bad poetry. Piano lessons, when I was a kid, but that was just my parents trying to make me well rounded. Traded it out for track when I was 14,”

“Ah, shame, you need a bit of a creative drive, really.”

“I imagine acting comes in handy, too. Think Lieke could do it?” 

Eames shook his head, and took a long swig of wine. “No, she hasn’t got it. Actors are too- hm, too big. Personality too loud to put it away.”

Arthur looked at him, shocked. “You are the loudest person in this business,”

Eames just laughed, but didn’t bother putting any actual humour behind it. “I know, I know. It’s-” He sighed, swirled his cup, and thought for a long moment. “Every forger I’ve spoken to, which is likely nearly all of them, learned at a young age how to put themselves in a box and leave the lights on in an empty house. Extreme dissociation, my therapist says.”

He felt raw, overexposed, and he snuck a glance in Arthur’s direction. He was watching him, and when Eames met his eyes, his mouth quirked up into a half smile. Eames didn’t talk about this to people, never really had, but this quiet moment, propped up on a bed with Arthur, _Arthur,_ his quietly daring suits, his raised eyebrows, his carefully neat handwriting that sometimes gave way to a looser scrawl- there was _something_ about this moment that had him putting words together, pulling at his own threads and laying them bare.

“And then, you learn how to be someone else. It’s not acting, not really, not for me. You find a piece of them that you understand, on a base, primal level, and you wear it like a second skin. Like it was always your skin to begin with. Put yourself away and lose everything in the way they hold their fingers, or whatever it is.”

Eames shrugged, aware that he’d been talking for too long. But forging was his _art_ , his poetry, his music, his masterpiece. (And damn, did he know that artists loved to talk about their work.)

There was a muted clink, and Eames looked over to see Arthur setting his empty wine glass on the side table. 

“Sorry,” He felt his face twist into a smile. “I didn’t mean to get all-” Eames cut himself off, waving a hand.

And then, Arthur was kissing him, gentle and delicate and like he was something precious. It was too short, and Eames didn’t even manage to kiss back before Arthur was pulling away.

“ _Fuck_ , sorry, I didn’t mean to- I know you don’t- It won’t happen again.” Arthur was fidgeting near frantically, and his lips were stained slightly redder by the wine. 

“I don’t what?” Eames asked, feeling something growing inside him.

Arthur scowled, and reached for the bottle of wine, drinking straight from it. “You’re not interested, you don’t reciprocate whatever bullshit feelings I have, and it’s fine. Won’t happen again.”

Eames felt like he’d been punched. One of the good ones, right to the head, that snapped the world into a different focus, like changing the lens on a camera.

“What? But you’re always such a prick, you find something wrong with everything I do-”

Arthur frowned and looked taken aback. “What? No, I’m just problem solving, working out the details, making everything work right. You’re the dick, even if I like what you come up with.”

“Oh my god,” Eames said. “I think I might be.”

He stared at Arthur, and felt like he was seeing him, really _seeing_ him, for the first time. Arthur didn’t want to hack away at Eames’ branches, he just wanted to weave them into perfect lines, give them a meticulously crafted trellis to work against.

He shook himself internally, and then frowned. “You started it though, yelling about being useless and drinking on the job. Had to spend hours working out how the mark treated his subordinates, all because you wanted to be a dick, right when they were going to talk about him.”

“Wait, you actually _were_ working in that pub?”

“ _Yeah_ , I bloody was.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. Cobb was having a bad day, I must’ve just pushed it onto you without realising. You work harder than anyone else I’ve worked a job with, I just didn’t know it at a time.”

Eames had no bloody clue what the hell was going on. Maybe he really was the world’s biggest idiot, after all. So much for fucking reading people, huh?

“It was infuriating, really, you were fucking magnificent and also a total asshole. Which apparently might be my type? Not like I wasn’t a dick too, I guess.” Arthur continued, tilting his head and looking like he might also be feeling like the rug had been swept out from under him.

“Shit.” Eames breathed. “I’m fucking sorry for everything I said, none of it was true, I just went for what I thought would sting the most. I think I’m in love with your dossiers, to be honest.”

“Yeah, you sure did that,” Arthur said, with a wry little smile. “Not that I didn’t do the same, though.”

They stared at each other for a long, long moment, breathing softly, both of their mouths twisted into half smiles. 

Arthur sighed after a moment, a deep, shuddering thing. “I’m really sorry for- for leaving. There was some shit with Cobb, and well, since I’m telling you everything today, apparently- I was terrified of how much I wanted you, of how much I couldn’t have. So- sorry.”

“Wait, wait, you have feelings for me? You _want_ me?” The thought hit Eames like a truck, this time, and he still felt utterly lost at sea. 

Arthur blinked, confused. “I thought you knew. You’re too good at what you do for me to hide something like that from you.”

And Eames was kissing him, curling a hand around the back of Arthur’s neck to keep him close. Arthur gasped into the kiss, and Eames took the opportunity to slip his tongue into his mouth, before pulling back. 

“I’m a fucking idiot. Kept myself from reading into anything because I couldn’t stop fucking thinking about you.”

It was Arthur’s turn to grab at him, drawing Eames into a kiss like he was starving for it. He kissed back with just as much heat, sloppy and slick and so, so unbelievably good. 

Eames broke the kiss just enough to pant into Arthur’s mouth. “I hated myself for weeks for not taking the chance to see your face when you came.” Arthur whined and nipped at his lower lip, pushing his shoulder into the headboard. 

“You want another chance?” Arthur murmured, voice low and rich. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eames breathed, losing himself in Arthur’s eyes for a long moment. “Yes fucking _please_.”

Arthur smiled at that, and he had fucking dimples, and Eames was the world’s biggest colossal idiot. There was something stirring in the pit of his stomach that he’d probably been ignoring for a while, and Eames was totally going to address it, but it had to wait. 

Because Arthur was rising to his knees, efficiently unbuttoning his trousers and slipping both them and his underwear down, all without breaking eye contact with Eames. 

“Here?” Eames frowned, glancing at the blueprints tacked to the wall, the stacks of papers, the empty coffee cups. 

“It’s late, they both should be asleep. And I had to deal with Cobb and Mal-” Arthur cut himself off, wincing and closing his eyes. Eames reached up, smoothed his thumb across Arthur’s cheek, cupping his jaw. 

“Yeah,” He murmured, guiding Arthur down for a kiss, softer, almost confessional. Eames felt a shudder go through Arthur, and the kiss changed, deepening. They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, and Eames could have kissed him forever, but he wanted his hands on Arthur’s skin. He wanted to see that delicious red flush again. 

So he reached for him, fingertips trailing down the soft fabric of his shirt and then the smooth heat of the bare skin of Arthur’s hip. He let his fingers skate down further, running his hand down his thigh.

Arthur made a noise at that, barely more than a sigh, and shifted, swinging his leg over Eames to settle in his lap. Eames couldn’t help but grind up into him for a moment, and Arthur broke the kiss, breathing heavy against his skin, before there was a hand cradling the back of Eames’ skull, tangling in his hair. 

“Hey,” Arthur said, a smile teasing at his lips.

“Hey,” Eames echoed, feeling a little bit lost at sea, in the very best way.

And then they were crashing back together, the kiss increasingly heated. Eames slipped his hand up under Arthur’s shirt, gliding up his back before pressing him closer, his breath catching when he felt Arthur’s cock pressed up against him. 

And all of a sudden, Eames was aware that he was achingly hard and needed to do something, _anything_ about that. He pulled back, making enough space between them to start working on the buttons of Arthur’s shirt. Arthur leaned to kiss at Eames’ neck, which was wholly unhelpful, but Eames _really_ couldn’t bring himself to mind. 

He managed to get most of the shirt unbuttoned before he got distracted by toying with one of Arthur’s nipples, which rewarded him with incredible little gasps and wriggles, and some time Eames was going to have to tie him up and make him do that for _hours_. 

That’d have to wait for another time, though. God, did he ever want another time. 

Arthur bit down, just hard enough to send sensation zinging across his skin, and Eames couldn’t hold back a groan. He shoved Arthur’s shirt off, running his hands down his bare chest and revelling in the expanse of skin.

Arthur shifted after a moment, and reached for Eames’ trousers, and there was an awkward moment where bodies didn’t quite align, but Eames lifted his hips up and then his trousers were down enough for Arthur to wrap his hand around his cock, and everything was _perfect_. 

Fucking in their workspace meant that there was almost definitely no lube to be found, but Eames couldn’t make himself give a damn. Not when he had Arthur naked in his lap, not when he could grip one of his hipbones and shift him so that Eames could wrap his hand around both of their cocks at the same time.

Arthur hissed at that, ducking his head for a searing kiss and rocking up into Eames’ hand, which felt fucking _fantastic_ against his cock. He slowed his hand after a few strokes, letting Arthur control the movement with every thrust of his hips. 

Eames took his hand away for a moment, and Arthur whined, digging his nails into Eames’ shoulders. Eames just licked across the palm of his hand, slicking it up, and wrapped it back around their cocks. Arthur’s forehead knocked against his own, his breath coming in short pants, and Eames pressed a quick kiss to his mouth before he had to break away to moan.

It was better now, slicker and smoother, and kept getting slicker as they worked each other up. Eames would’ve sold his soul in a heartbeat if it meant he’d get to keep feeling this, the hardsoftwarm press of Arthur’s cock against his own, the weight of him on his thighs, the quiet noises he made against his neck. 

Eames’ orgasm shocked him when it hit, his hand tightening on Arthur’s hip to keep him close as sensation washed over him, setting him alight. He blinked his eyes open to see Arthur watching him, eyes dark, whispering “Fuck, _Eames_.”

Eames felt his mouth curl into a smile even as he panted. “You’re so fucking pretty like this, love.” 

Arthur whined, and Eames realised he’d stopped moving his hand, which wouldn’t do. So he wrapped his hand firmly around Arthur’s cock and reached up to pinch one of his nipples, grinning when Arthur moaned and writhed against him.

His head dipped to knock against Eames’ shoulder, his body tense and lax all at once. Eames stopped toying with his nipples to tangle in his hair, pulling his head back.

“Come on, let me see you, darling.” Eames watched as the words hit Arthur, the line of his shoulders tensing. Arthur’s eyes cracked open, and Eames stared up at him, feeling something akin to awe. 

He twisted his hand, and then Arthur was coming with a choked off moan that sounded almost like his name. God, he looked perfect, stunning and beautiful and everything Eames had never let himself want. 

Arthur sagged against him, and Eames wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close and pressing a kiss to his cheek when Arthur buried his face in his neck. 

“Don’t go running off to Cobb now, yeah?” Eames said, when their breathing had begun to level out.

“Cobb can go fuck himself.” Arthur mumbled, pressing a kiss to the join of Eames’ neck and shoulder. Eames just laughed and pressed him closer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this fic 90% written for Eames talking about forgery and disassociation? yep! 
> 
> also i'd planned to do much more with this last sex scene but it just. this one felt /right/, yknow? felt weird for me, champion of elaborate smut, to be somewhat restrained, but apparently Emotions are important or smth, idk


End file.
